this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024

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Will the price of Freeze Driers go down? (USA question) (self.nostupidquestions)

submitted 2 days ago by snausagesinablanket to c/nostupidquestions

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When Microwaves first came out they were huge but with a tiny cooking area and they were not affordable, and were mostly in business kitchens and a few restaurants. I would love a freeze dryer but the cheapest I have seen is $1600 and they only have 4 small trays.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

Probably not. They aren't mass produced to the same extent because while there is a market for them, that market isn't even close to as large as the microwave market.

Also, I highly recommend Technology Connections' video on freeze dryers, as it highlights why it's not as useful as they may seem - They have their uses, but freeze drying is not the ultimate food preservation method.

The video goes in depth into how freeze drying works (and doesn't), and I recommend watching the entire thing and evaluate whether you actually need one.

[–] ikidd 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Watch this episode. It will cure most people of wanting a freeze dryer. The only thing I would get one for is if I did a lot of backpacking or expected the zombie apocalypse after I had 5 years to freeze dry enough shit to trade for concubines.

[–] ch00f 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My sister has one specifically to sell novelty foods at craft fairs.

[–] ikidd 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Well, I guess she's not in the potential concubine pool. That's a shame.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Maybe you could be her concubine?

[–] ch00f 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’m missing something here…

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The person you replied to said

after I had 5 years to freeze dry enough shit to trade for concubines.

and you indicated that your sister would have enough of her own freeze-dried food that she wouldn't need to trade for it. Thus, she is safe from being OP's concubine.

[–] scutiger 3 points 1 day ago

Safe from? You mean she doesn't get to.

[–] foggy 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yeah if you backpack you can make use of it.

Otherwise: no.

[–] Fondots 1 points 1 day ago

It depends, some things, like freeze dried fruit may not necessarily need to be rehydrated.

For things that need to be rehydrated, you may not need as much water to rehydrate it to be edible as would be in the regular ingredients. Hypothetically if you were to make soup from scratch, you'd lose some of the water to evaporation as you cook it. If you were to premake and dehydrate soup, it wouldn't need to be cooked as long or to as high of a temperature - everything is already cooked you just need to rehydrate it and warm it up to your liking, no need to get it up to a boil and simmer it for however many minutes or hours so less is lost to evaporation.

And depending on the area you're backpacking in, you're probably going to be refilling you water from streams and such several times along the way so you can plan around that. In the areas I normally backpack, you're probably going to cross over or hike along a few different streams every day, running out of water isn't a major concern.

One time in particular comes to mind, where I did have to plan around having enough water to cook my meal. Normally we plan on our lunch being cold- jerky, trail mix, etc. and we do a freeze dried meal or something similar for dinner that requires water. Around lunch time we were by a stream, and looking at our map the area we were planning to camp for the night wouldn't be near a water source (pretty much at the very top of a mountain) so we decided we'd have our hot meal for lunch so we could refill our water to make sure we'd have enough to last us until we were able to refill later the next day.

It kind of sucked though, as we were getting closer to our campsite, the temperature started dropping, and a thick fog rolled in. By the time we made camp, we were all kind of cold, everything was damp, and we were generally pretty miserable, and we didn't even have a hot meal to look forward to. So we pretty much just scarfed down whatever jerky or crackers or whatever we had and went right to bed. The next day though, everything had cleared up, and when we made our way to the summit to enjoy the view. We looked down into the valley below us and we saw a cloud, and we realized that the fog from the night before wasn't just fog, it was a cloud passing over the mountain, and we hiked through it, so that was pretty cool.

But the next time you go mattress shopping and the salesperson is telling you "it's like sleeping on a cloud" run away, clouds suck and don't make for good sleep.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (4 children)

If you're backpacking, wouldn't you have to carry the same amount/weight of water to re-hydrate it?

[–] str82L 11 points 2 days ago

Sometimes you can find filterable/purificiable water when you're in nature. If you can't you should reconsider where your planning to go.

[–] athairmor 9 points 2 days ago

Not necessarily. Most backpacking is going to be down in areas close to fresh water sources and you’d be bringing a water filter.

Hiking/camping where you can’t easily find fresh water is quite risky.

[–] foggy 5 points 2 days ago

No, you locate water, filter it, boil it, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I imagine it depends on the type of food, as there's probably some proteins you can freeze-dry that don't have to be rehydrated to eat.

[–] Mbourgon 6 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I was going to say “nice try posting here, Alex”

[–] IzzyScissor 0 points 1 day ago

"Freeze drying is just freezer-burn to completion" was the line that really made me re-think how useful owning a freeze dryer would be.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago

freeze drying is not the ultimate food preservation method.

Ultimate? No. But it's part of a suite of food preservation tools. Without watching the video--YouTube is doing that annoying thing where it requires sign-in--I can say that you need to be able to use multiple food preservation techniques. You should learn to do canning as well, and you really need an effective vacuum sealer (that can use heavy-duty mylar, versus specialty plastic bags) in order to effectively preserve freeze dried foods, and those mylar packages need to also be sealed in containers away from pests that might chew through the bags.

Freezing food, by itself, is only useful as long as you have electricity. If you're entirely off-grid, and have over-capacity solar system, that might be good enough, if you have a LOT of freezer space. The least expensive freezers I can find are around $25 ft^3; costs decrease slightly when you're talking about large walk-in freezers, but that requires a building that can accept a walk-in installation, and $25,000 for a 1000ft^3 freezer is more than most people can afford.

Drying foods in general is decent, and high sugar content--fruits in particular--can lasts decades if they're vacuum packed with oxygen absorbers. Even though dried foods will have some moisture content, the sugars act as a preservative and prevent the growth of bacteria. (Sugar curing meat is definite a real thing, much like salt curing; more on this in a sec.)

Canning is good for some things, but certain things can not be safely canned, and canning is slooooooooooow. It also requires a botttle/ring/seal for each and every thing that you can; seals are not reusable.

Dry goods don't need to be freeze-dried; you can vacuum seal most of them with oxygen absorbers and desiccants, and be fine. Things like flour can mostly be put in large buckets with gamma seal lids and be okay for years at a time. White rice stores wonderfully for the long term, as do dried beans. (However!, dried beans must be soaked prior to cooking, the soaking water discarded prior to cooking, and can not safely be eaten raw. Cooked canned beans are a better choice for anything other than very long term storage.) Brown rice has a high fat content relative to white rice, and has a bad tendency to spoil, as do nuts of all varieties; I haven't tried vacuum sealing them with oxygen absorbers and desiccants to see if that preserves them for longer than a few years.

Meats can be preserved by curing. This is, however, a very exacting process, and it not recommended unless you know what you're doing. It requires a temperature and moisture controlled container and a few weeks of time, and fucking it up means that you kill yourself with bacterial contamination.

Freeze drying works for complete meals where you can't freeze things, and you want food that's going to be ready-to-go, either rehydrated or dry. Yes, you can eat freeze dried things without reconstituting them, although it's not terribly pleasant in some/many cases. If you, for instance, made a stock-pot full of red beans and rice, freeze drying would be the ideal way of preserving it and making it shelf-stable.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Its probably more affordable to just buy prepackaged foods than to spend the money and considerable time and effort on a freeze dryer.

Check out Technology Connection's in depth video on the subject: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Namf-Ddo_Xo

[–] Prok 12 points 2 days ago

Freeze dryers are much less useful day-to-day so the market is much smaller which won't really drive much of a scaling up of production like happened for microwaves I imagine

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

You could DIY by freezing your food and then putting it in a vacuum chamber that can handle a lot of moisture. There’s a very detailed video about the second part and if I’m not mistaken you’d only need to freeze the stuff before hand to get freeze dried.

https://youtu.be/5TaKnvD5SYE

[–] yesman 10 points 2 days ago

Consumer goods become cheaper through innovation and economies of scale. Freeze drying is a mature technology with limited appeal.

[–] quixotic120 5 points 2 days ago

No. For every one freeze dryer that is sold 1000 microwaves are sold. The consumer demand simply isn’t there outside of niche communities like survivalists

[–] Lost_My_Mind 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Freeze driers? No no no.....you want REAL dryers! It's winter time, maaaan! Don't you want your clothes coming out fluffy, and warm??? You ever put on a pair of snug warm underwear immediately out of the dryer? It hugs your buttcrack and makes it feel like christmas for your balls!

Stay warm!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I always wondered if freeze drying my clothes would be better in any way.

Also, for a period of my life, I used to put clean underwear in the freezer. That way, if the morning shower didn't wake me up, getting dressed certainly would. 1/10 would recommend.

[–] FuglyDuck 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

“Ever try doing laundry before you run out of clean underwear?”- your mom, maybe.

“I suppose I should be glad you’re doing laundry at all.”- also possibly your mom.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Dehydrators work reasonably well for many similar uses and are pretty cheap

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

And freeze dried food is so expensive as well :/ cries in absolutely loving freeze dried fruits over regular ones

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

A quick web search shows that you can freeze dry at home without a dedicated machine. A bunch of sites say you can do it in a regular fridge's freezer.